New transmission lines to lead to tree-cutting
SAN FERNANDO CITY—An undetermined number of trees will be cut in a national park in Santa, Ilocos Sur, to give way to a new transmission line project of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
But the NGCP promised to plant 100 trees for every tree cut at Northern Luzon Heroes Hill National Park, a 1,300-hectare protected park that is home to a molave forest and a 25-foot waterfall.
The country’s power transmission line operator is set to put up a 230-kilovolt line from San Esteban town in Ilocos Sur to Laoag City in Ilocos Norte.
In putting up the new line, six towers that line more than
2 kilometers will be built inside the national park.
Lilibeth Gaydowen, NGCP public affairs officer, said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) would conduct a study to determine how many trees would be cut in the park.
On June 25, the NGCP signed an agreement with the DENR regional office to preserve the park.
Lawyer Cynthia Alabanza, NGCP spokesperson, said the company would fund a three-year reforestation program to restore the park and replace the trees that would be cut to give way to the new line.
“The NGCP is committed to taking care of the environment. We comply [first] with environmental laws before we push through with our projects,” she said.
The project is a double-circuit line that will transmit electricity from wind power plants to towns and cities in the Ilocos region.
Giovanni Galang, head of NGCP’s engineering project management division, said the project would help Northern Luzon secure a reliable transmission system in line with the NGCP’s N-1 contingency protocol.
The protocol ensures that the transmission system operates normally even when the system’s component suffers a glitch. The project is now in its preconstruction stage.
In some parts of Mindanao, transmission lines of the NGCP have been bombed by Moro guerrillas in the past, prompting the government to double security in areas where the lines were located. Cristina Arzadon, Inquirer Northern Luzon
